In other words, Gilmor voted “yes” to allow Manning to vote no. Gilmor shortly afterwards resigned her Senate seat to accept Governor Kasich’s appoint to the State Employee Relations Board (SERB). Regardless, our attention then turned to the more conservative House where Batchelder had to make sure his body didn’t pass a version of SB 5 that was DOA in the Senate or would require a House-Senate conference that would guarantee that a referendum on SB 5 would be in the 2012. (Anyone else remember when the GOP confidentially stated that they thought they had better chances beating a referendum on SB 5 if it were held in an off-year election than a presidential one? Technically that may still be accurate. But it’s just a choice of how many fully loaded semi trucks you want to run over you in hindsight.)

There was some question as to what Speaker Batchelder said during the the House session in which it passed SB 5. We revealed that he was angrily indicating that he may not recognize House Assistant Minority Whip Debbie Phillips (D-Athens)’s request to make a point of personal privilege to honor a labor leader who had died that day before being able to attend the body’s debate on SB 5.

“Well, she may, or she may not goddamn get it.”

Classy.

Our attention then began to include the debate of Kasich’s first budget, particularly his policy director’s stark and publicized admission that the budget had virtually had nothing to do with any projected deficit. It was simply used as a justification for everything Kasich would have wanted to do regardless of the State’s fiscal health.